National government

Thailand’s Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha will attend the inaugural US-ASEAN summit in United States next week, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee revealed on 5 February. The event will be held at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California from 14-18 February on the invitation of US President Barack ...

Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party on 4 February nominated Shwe Mann, one of the country’s most powerful politicians, to head a prominent legal advisory panel, as the freshly elected parliament prepares to choose a new president. Shwe Mann, the No. 3 in the junta ...

In a country now saturated with smartphones and an information-hungry population, it was only a matter of time before someone developed an app for civic engagement with the newly elected National League for Democracy-led government. Enter Ko Soe Lin Htoot, a 32-year-old computer designer who hopes ...

Even though Myanmar’s NLD controls both houses of parliament, ethnic minority MPs are ready to take on the majority to improve ethnic rights. The representative of the Zomi Congress for Democracy, which won two upper house and two lower house seats, said that even with a small ...

Laos’ National Election Committee will soon announce the list of candidates standing to be potential members of the National Assembly (NA) and Provincial Assemblies (PAs) on 20 March. Committee Member and President of the NA’s Law Committee Prof. Dr Davone Vangvichit told Vientiane Times on 3 February that ...

The corruption situation in Thailand continued to improve in December last year as indicated by the semi-annual index compiled by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce. The index was at 55 in December last year, the highest level in six years, compared to 49 ...

It had been a long wait: Almost three months since the election that swept Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy to victory, but also decades of being kept on the sidelines by military control. Finally on 1 February, Myanmar’s NLD MPs took ...

Vietnam planted border posts between 5 and 50 metres inside Cambodian territory during the late 1980s, researchers from the Royal Academy of Cambodia said on 31 January. Sok Touch, the director of border research at the academy, said there are three distinct sets of border posts ...

Vietnam and Laos, the only Communist regimes in South-east Asia, inducted new leadership this past week through party congresses. Changes in both cases saw conservatives prevail. The relatively secretive Lao People’s Revolutionary Party which runs Laos – which is chairman of the 10-nation Asean this year – chose Mr ...

Vientiane recorded public debt of more than 6.946 trillion kip, including 6.931 trillion kip of state investment debt remaining on contracts and 15 billion kip owed to utilities and other expenses. The figure was revealed at Vientiane’s monthly meeting for January attended by Vientiane Mayor Dr ...